Re: lynx-dev LYNX: sometimes need <br><br> to generate blank line

[David Combs]

On Sun, May 21, 2000 at 02:19:03PM +0100, David Woolley wrote:
> > The paragraphs are here denoted by <br><br>.
> 
> That's not a paragraph delimiter in HTML.  Someone is misusing it.

Right, they screwed up.  More likely, their html-GENERATOR-app
screwed up.  Or maybe they used it wrong.

All I want to do is to be able to READ the darn page -- if it
takes an option that pretends that 2-br's is a <p>, well,
fine -- that's what it takes.
> 
> The articles you have seen with blank lines probably have more than
> one paragraph.  HTML paragraphs are marked by enclosing the paragraph
> in <p> and </p> although the </p> is optional prior to XHTML 1.0.
> 
> > My question: is or could there be some (run-time!) option to
> > make lynx INSERT a blank line at paragraph-breaks -- something
> > I could turn on and off as I pleased, according to what I saw
> > on the screen?
> 
> Lynx *always* inserts a blank line at paragraph breaks.  The text you
> quote only has one paragraph.
Yeah, yeah, I hear you, I know.  Again, all I want to do is
to READ their stupidly-done page!
> 
> > To fend off the suggestion "send their webmaster notice
> > that their html is wrong", I come across too many of these
> > sites to do that.  And if I do ask them, they'll probably
> > tell me "well, use IE or NS -- they show it just fine!".
> 
> True, but not telling them will leave them blissfully ignorant!
> You could try demonstrating a style sheet that indents the first line
> of real paragraphs, or generates an oversize initial capital, although
> I'm not sure which, if any, GUI browser supports these features.
> 

All very nice, but does NOTHING to enable me or others here
to, rignt NOW, go READ such pages (and get on with our work)!

------ Note this response lines WITHOUT ">") from 
          brian j pardy <address@hidden>:

  > What I would like is for a mode/option to do something
  > NOT according to the standard: to make <br><br> issue
  > a blank line.  Just so I can READ the stuff.
  
  
  This SHOULD do it, from what I understand.
  
  > I don't what buggy html-generator generates this stuff,
  > but you see it here and there.  Probably NS and IE do just
  > what I want.
  
  They do.  I remember a discussion on this a while ago, concerning
  changing the default.
  
(1) He says that NS and IE actually DO separate the lines.

(2) Re what the default is -- makes no difference for THIS
    <br><br> thing (see the comment):


  1061  .h2 COLLAPSE_BR_TAGS
  1062  # If COLLAPSE_BR_TAGS is set FALSE, Lynx will not collapse serial BR 
tags.
  1063  # If set TRUE, two or more concurrent BRs will be collapsed into a 
single
  1064  # line break.  Note that the valid way to insert extra blank lines in 
HTML
  1065  # is via a PRE block with only newlines in the block.
  1066  #
  1067  #COLLAPSE_BR_TAGS:TRUE
  1068  COLLAPSE_BR_TAGS:FALSE



 (3) so, it would have to be SOMETHING ELSE, I'd imagine.

(4) Re the suggestion to tell the site that our little
LYNX doesn't format it the way it's easy to see --
sorry, life's too short, too busy, and too urgent --
I need to see such pages NOW -- not tomorrow or next
week or month or year when and IF they get around to
fixing it.

LIKE IT OR NOT, we live an IE and NS world -- who cares
whether or not some backwards people using a backwards
package (lynx) not even written by M$! -- whether such people
can read their web sites or not.

Can we convince them "you'll make (or save) $X amount of EXTRA 
MONEY by fixing your web pages".  No way. 

Look, guys, like it or not, we have to ADAPT TO THEM.

If NS and IE can both read something, then (assuming it's
no big programming problem) LYNX has to do it too.

I am sure that I am not the only one who comes across
such <br><br> text.

A run-time option, via the "o" page (and then a ^R for
reread and reformat), would make this possible.

(regardless of what they "should" do -- if we could
get (other) people to do what we thought they "should"
do, it'd sure be a different world!)

David


; To UNSUBSCRIBE: Send "unsubscribe lynx-dev" to address@hidden